Masashi Kishimoto (岸本斉史, Kishimoto Masashi) born November 8, 1974 in Okayama Prefecture Japan, is the creator and author of the popular manga and animeNaruto. He debuted as a mangaka (Japanese cartoonist) with his work Karakuri, which was submitted to Shueisha in 1996. Beginning in 1999, his next work Naruto was serialised in the Weekly Shōnen Jump manga magazine. Kishimoto had received the Hop Step Award, which is given to new artists once a month by Shonen Jump. He also says that he was heavily influenced by the Dragon Ball series and its creator, Akira Toriyama.

His twin brother Seishi Kishimoto is also a mangaka and the creator of 666 Satan and Blazer Drive. Their art has been remarked on as being very similar and accusations of plagiarism were made, either that Seishi had copied his brother or vice versa. However, Seishi notes in one of his manga volumes that the similarities are not intentional and that the occurrence would have been likely because both he and Masashi have been influenced by many of the same things. Masashi Kishimoto has publicly dismissed these accusations in his own manga.

In his interviews and exclusively in the Naruto manga, he commonly mentions his deceased plant, Ukki-kun.[1] According to Kishimoto, the first time he had an office plant, due to missing the country atmosphere, he fed it undiluted plant food. He continued purchasing several other plants afterwards, but many of them perished.[2]